subject: Piano Lessons - Kids Do NOT Learn Music Faster Than Adults [print this page] Piano Lessons - Kids Do NOT Learn Music Faster Than Adults
Let's do some myth-busting, because this is my favorite myth to bust as a career piano teacher. Ready...?
The popular notion that kids learn music faster than adults is... completely false! It's categorically untrue. Where it has come from over the years is a piece of neuroscience being erroneously applied to a situation in which it has no basis.
What this means is children between the ages of two and six years old have an advantage learning a particular skill called absolute pitch. That means they learn to identify a musical pitch by letter name solely through hearing it, with no reference note given for comparison. They learn to hear and identify a particular sound in the sonority of the pitch and can forever automatically identify that pitch by it's name with certainty. This is something that about two percent of the general population is born with the ability to do, however, if one is not a trained musician, then no one knows that the ability is there in a person. It is an advantageous ability for musicians to have, yet it is not a hinderance to lack this ability. Additionally, about 85% of professional string players develop this ability just in the course of learning their instrument.
Children between the ages of two and six have an advantage in acquiring this skill because of the rate and amount of brain growth going on in them during that phase of their development. However, they only have the advantage in acquiring this skill during that time if they are taught properly. "Taught properly" in this case means thirty minutes to an hour of instruction every day with a qualified teacher until the skill is acquired. (Repeated tests and experiments have shown that if taught properly one hundred percent of the kids in this age group will acquire absolute pitch.)
Can you imagine having your two-year-old in an expensive series of music lessons every day? I thought not. That's what it takes to develop absolute pitch in a two-to-six-year-old and it is the ONLY portion of learning music where children have an advantage over adults.
What most people don't know is that adults actually have an advantage over children in learning an instrument, particularly the piano. The reason is adults have a lifetime of musical history, have heard thousands of songs and already know what they like. In teaching adults, I've found they learn to play the instrument far faster than the kids. It seems this stored lifetime of loving music is such a powerful advantage that, if the adults practice regularly, they outpace the kids in every skill involved in playing the piano. Hands down, if the adults apply themselves, they win every time.
However, I have also seen that it can be easier to make kids practice daily, especially if their music practice is considered part of their school "homework" in the household. The adults often times have more outside obligations and responsibilities that prevent them from getting daily practice. I have found in fifteen years of teaching over one thousand students that this is the only advantage the kids have over the adults. If you are an adult student, don't think that you are at a disadvantage!
If you are a parent and have questions about absolute pitch, please contact me and I'd be happy to provide more information. If you are an adult and have specific questions about piano lessons, and how to use all that stored memory to your advantage, please do contact me at http://anaheimpiano.com
